My car makes a loud, scary, grinding noise, and of course the repair shop is closed until Tuesday — so instead of visiting relatives for the holiday weekend, I get a quiet “writer’s retreat” at home.
If you’re stuck at home, too, perhaps you’ll enjoy this bit of fun…
So if working in radians you hate
(How can 
Make your life simpler now
By just switching to Ï„
= 6.28318…
—Denise Gaskins
6/28 is Ï„ Day.
Tau = Ï„ = one turn around the circle = 
How do mathematicians celebrate Ï„ Day?
Protest! Share anti-Ï€ propaganda.
And eat two pies…
Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest.
Several of these articles were submitted by the bloggers; others were drawn from my overflowing blog reader. Don’t try to skim everything all at once, but take the time to enjoy browsing. Savor a few posts today, and then come back for another helping tomorrow or next week.
Most of the photos below are from the 2010 MAA Found Math Gallery; click each image for more details. Quotations are from Mike Cook’s Canonical List of Math Jokes.
Let the mathematical fun begin…
It’s been nearly two weeks since the blog carnival website sent me any articles for the MTaP carnival. If you tried to submit a entry for the carnival this week or last, I probably didn’t get it. Feel free to email me directly!
In the meantime, I’ve combed Google Reader and collected a nice assortment of posts for this week’s Math Teachers at Play — but there is still room for more.
Wow! And to think, I was proud of myself for finishing a crochet afghan. Once.
Chain several. Leave straight to work in rows, or connect into a loop. Single crochet until your patience runs out, increasing every nth stitch (add an extra sc in the same place). Experiment with different colors and patterns. This pdf will give you more ideas.
The more frequently you increase, the frillier your hyperbolic plane will be, while a less-frequent increase makes it easier for students to see the structure. Daina Taimina recommends a 12:13 ratio (increase after every 12th stitch) for classroom use.
Hat tip: 2010 MAA Found Math Gallery, Week 45, and authentic arts by jenny hoople for the pdf.
Welcome to the May 20, 2011 edition of Math Teachers at Play. Before beginning the carnival, let us have some interesting facts about 38.
- The sum of the squares first three primes
- The number of years it took the Israelites to travel from Kadesh Barnea to the Zered valley in Deuteronomy
- There number of surviving plays written by William Shakespeare
- The atomic number of strontium
- Thirty seven and 38 are the first pair of consecutive positive integers not divisible by any of their digits.
Now, let the carnival begin!
The new Math Teachers at Play blog carnival is ready for your browsing pleasure:
Welcome to the 37th edition of the Math Teachers at Play blog carnival. I’m delighted to host the carnival here this month at Maths Insider!
For those new to the Math Teachers at Play carnival, this carnival celebrates some of the best maths teaching articles written by teachers, parents and bloggers each month. …
In keeping with tradition, I’ve presented a “37″ puzzle and some interesting arithmetic facts about the number 37 below. …
With news reports of radiation from Japan being found from California to Massachusetts — and now even in milk — math teachers need to help our students put it all in perspective.
xkcd to the rescue!
Pajamas Media offers a brief history of radiation, plus an analysis of our exposure in Banana Equivalent Doses:
And the EPA offers a FAQ:
[T]he levels being seen now are 25 times below the level that would be of concern even for infants, pregnant women or breastfeeding women, who are the most sensitive to radiation… At this time, there is no need to take extra precautions… Iodine-131 disappears relatively quickly in the environment.
— Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
pages 4-5 of EPA FAQ
[Hat tip: Why Homeschool.]
36 has long been one of my favorite numbers, but faced with this carnival, it was hard to figure out why. It’s a square number that’s a product of two squares, but that’s not too rare. (Why?) It’s the 6th perfect square and the sum of the first six odds, but that’s not too remarkable. (Why?) It’s the 8th triangular number, but not a Sierpinski step or anything… wait! It’s a square triangular number? How common is that? 1, 36, then…?
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 